


A Story of Ranskoor Av Kolos

by LMX



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Between Episodes, Episode: s11e10 The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos, Gen, Season/Series 11 Spoilers, and is just so done with war-faring, the doctor hates war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 19:10:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17229593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LMX/pseuds/LMX
Summary: Greston Paltraki's path from Stebl to Ranskoor Av Kolos is a long one. The Doctor's journey there was longer than it might have appeared.





	A Story of Ranskoor Av Kolos

**Author's Note:**

> My initial plan was to have one distress call stack up for each episode, but it got a bit messy on the way!

Greston was at home when the first planet in his system disappeared. The first he knew of it was the sky lighting up like someone was bouncing Brill-light off Nixus' atmosphere and straight into his eyes. He'd shielded his face automatically, not sure what was going on, but the light only intensified until he couldn't keep his eyes open.

They'd always shared a neat binary orbit - Nixus and Stebl - it was rare to go a whole day without the other planet appearing in the sky overhead. On a clear day on Stebl you could predict the weather on Nixus. At the right time of day, you could pick up the other planet's radio channels. There was a vid channel dedicated to art installations built on one planet big enough to be seen on the other.

When Nixus disappeared from the sky, Stebl lurched like the world was ending. Tides shifted, massive tsunamis swept up and down the coasts, the planet creaked and shuddered like it would fall in on itself. It was months before the death toll stopped rising, and then a few months after that the scientists revealed that their new orbit was a terminal one. Without Nixus' stabilising influence, they were falling into Brill's firey grasp. Stebl was doomed.

When the call went out for trained pilots to go to war against the still-unknown enemy that had taken Nixus from them, dooming every soul on two planets, Greston pulled out his old pilot's jacket and signed up.

The first thing he found out, standing in a hall full of new recruits, was that Nixus was not the first planet to be ripped from its orbit in such a way. Theirs was the third system to lose a planet, spread over the last century - and scientists were sure that it had been removed, rather than destroyed.

The second thing he learned was that the signal left in the aftermath had distinct traces of Stenza technology, although on a scale previously unknown. Every planet which had disappeared from its orbit had a history of fighting off Stenza invaders, obstructing Stenza collectors and generally being disruptive to the Stenza way of life. It seemed clear who the culprits were, even though the Stenza homesystem had denied any involvement.

The congress already had a science vessel and a warship in motion - sixty years into a mission to track down the source of the Stenza signal that had ripped the first planet out of orbit, and a fleet of vessels following with a twenty year gap.

Greston had been in training for nine months when they started hearing rumours of a distress call from the warship that had gone ahead. It wasn't a message, but an automated signal from the ship itself - all souls lost, it said. No survivors.

-

As they dematerialised from Desolation, while she was still trying to find out where the targeting computer *was*, so that she could start plotting a course back to Sheffield, while the Doctor bounced around the console touching and pressing and guessing and eating biscuits, the TARDIS was buzzing with excited energy too.

She was still coming down off the adrenaline of the their can't-stop-won't-stop adventure that had so narrowly avoided disaster so many times, still feeling that hearts-stopping moment where the TARDIS returned for her. She didn't even realise the TARDIS had something to show her until she finally found a display (projected now, no monitor! What a clever TARDIS her TARDIS was) and the message shown there.

An automated distress call, from Ranskoor Av Kolos (she thinks maybe she'd heard of the planet from somewhere, but her memory was still ragged with her too-early too-soon wakeup after regenerating). A warship signalling that it had been disabled, all souls lost, bodies in need of recovering.

The Doctor was suddenly, sharply angry with all war-faring races the universe over. "What are you even thinking?" she demanded, keeping her voice low. "I can't go after some distress call - I nearly got them killed yesterday," she pointed down the corridor to where she'd convinced the three humans to seek out somewhere to rest. "And the day before that, too! Graham and Ryan have just lost Grace. Nothing dangerous, not today. No."

The TARDIS' hum picked up a tone of shocked confusion, but the Doctor was already dismissing the distress call, hiding the message.

-

It's almost ten years after the first disappearance of Nixus that the fleet of three left orbit around the dying Stebl - its land already scorched beyond all recognition, seas receding and the skies darkening as it spiralled inexorably towards Brill.

The three ships were massive city-carriers, slow and lumbering but with bulkheads packed with ground-walkers, short range fighters and ground troops.

Even as the fleet set out from Stebl's ever decreasing orbit, the remaining troops, pilots, crew, trainees and trainers packed up everything that remained into the ships and stations that would become their homes and left the surface of Stebl for good. Most of the civilians had already been evacuated from the planet surface, some taking the long range transports to the nearest congress planets, others setting up in the overcrowded ships and stations that now took up position in the empty space where Nixus had once stood.

On the ground below, the remaining inhabitants mined and harvested what resources they could before the planet surface became too hot, shipping a steady stream of mineral and vegetable up to the population above.

Paltraki - and one day he'd get used to the way the born and raised military men around him snapped his family name instead of his first name - had proven himself in every simulation to be smart, bold and wicked accurate with a blaster. They were talking about finding him a place on the next fleet - the one they hoped they would never have to use. If the fleet of three fell, if whoever it was out there decimated the biggest and most experienced space fleet the Brill system had ever assembled, then what came next was likely to be far worse.

His imminent promotion was the only reason Greston was in the command centre when the distress call came through. It was in one of the congress languages - one he didn't speak - but presumably he wasn't the only one who didn't speak it, because there was an interpreter speaking up from the corner, explaining that the distress call was from the planet Ranskoor Av Kolov.

It was from a Brueven Warship, one of the main fleet that had followed the initial investigative vessels whose cries for help still echoed unanswered - but the message was confused, jumbled, aggressive. Every plea for help was followed by a snarling declaration of war, every sob bitten off into a growl.

A day later, a second distress call filtered through, and a day after that there was another. Each as scattered and uncertain as the last. The distress calls were a confusion of emotion, but there was no mistaking the message - the Stenza who had taken their planet has been found, and they were unspeakably powerful.

-

The Doctor was wrestling with the TARDIS, being fought every step of the way as she tried to steer back towards Sheffield and being bounced and deflected and shaken about every which way.

"What's wrong with you?" she demanded in a hiss.

There was a jolt to the left and Ryan yelped, but the Doctor didn't have a spare moment to look up and investigate the pained noise as a lever that had been pointedly pressed down a moment ago popped back up.

"I know you hate it when I regenerate inside you, I know it's a lot of energy to contain - but that was AGES ago now, even longer for you, you can't still be mad about that!"

There was a moment of calm, and the Doctor dared a sprint around the console to put the lever back to where it should be, only to be nearly knocked off her feet as the TARDIS did a one-eighty (and that felt very odd when suspended in the vortex) and hurried off in the other direction.

"I know you decorated yourself, and I do love it, but sweetheart you're far too old for your teenaged punk rebellion phase - you can't just..." She managed to get the lever down, and raced back towards the targeting computer, slamming the landing button into place as she tried to tweak the direction just a little more, only to have it completely fail to respond. "Have it your way, then," she said brightly, grudgingly thrilled at the idea of a completely unknown adventure as they rematerialised. The display that might have shown her where they'd landed was still not making any sense (or she hadn't found the correct setting for it yet, she couldn't get it to clear the Ranskoor Av Kolos location no matter how hard she tried), so she span around to grin at the three nervous faces around the console.

"Right then... Sheffield?" She tried to sound confident as she headed to the door, but she didn't think she was fooling anyone.

-

It was twenty years after the disappearance of Nixus that Stebl started to burn. To have survived the millennia, the blossoming of two civilisations, the meeting and blending of those civilisations in the system that cradled them both, to have survived the Stenza cleansing and the removal of its planetary twin by those same Stenza monsters, only to fall at last into its own system star.

Greston watched the vid streams from the observation deck, taking his break time to pay his final respects to his home as the ship he was to command, with its very specific mission statement, prepared for departure.

They knew so much more now, information gathered and transmitted by the scientific vessel before it was destroyed, data from the distress calls they'd received - both automatic and personal. They had shielding for their ships to protect them from the psychotropic waves transmitted from their target planet, they had suits made with special materials, and helmets to keep them safe in their own heads. They also had no way of testing any of it until they arrived. No way of knowing if their preparations were enough.

They'd transmitted everything they knew to the fleet that had gone ahead of them, hoping that they would have enough information and tools and material enough to prepare their own defences. If all went well, by the time the second fleet - the last fleet - arrived, the ones that had gone before would have finished their mission.

The problem was, they'd transmitted the information months ago... but they hadn't heard a single thing back.

Turning away from his burning planet, Greston packaged away his old self along with all of his hesitation and concern and settled Captain Paltraki over his shoulders again. This was who he needed to be, right now. Captain Paltraki, leading the team of misfits and thieves in the oldest, most ragged warship the congress could find, in behind the lines of fighting to steal back their missing planet.

-

Yaz and her mum had headed straight home in Yaz's car once they confirmed the other spiders were contained, and Graham, Ryan and the Doctor had offered a slightly shaken Dr. McIntyre a lift back to the University.

They'd mostly followed the Doctor's lead in ignoring the petulant American who was still demanding answers and refusing to take responsibility. They could make sure the authorities knew about the unlicensed landfill, and Jade could use the University resources to ensure action was taken, but it was too late for the spider population which had already mutated beyond the size of a simple house spider.

Once the scientist had been dropped off at the lab, Graham and Ryan turned to look at the Doctor in the back seat. "Where to, Doc?"

"TARDIS, please Graham. I've got some spider herding to do. I think the planet Klattops would benefit from a couple of spiders-of-unusual-size, and the oxygen density there should be high enough to support even the biggest of the remaining spiders."

"You're not going to take all those spiders on board the TARDIS?" Ryan interjected, shuddering with the thought.

"Why not, I let all sorts of other aliens on board all the time?" Her tone was a little accusatory, reminding the two humans that they were on that list.

"But what if you don't get all of them out at... What was it? Klattops?"

"Klattops," the Doctor corrected, though Ryan wouldn't have been able to say what he'd pronounced wrong the first time. "And the TARDIS is a very sophisticated device, Ryan. She knows when there's something on board that shouldn't be. Well... mostly. Well... sometimes."

"Somehow I'm not reassured," Graham grumbled, pulling away from the University and back towards Park Hill.

The TARDIS didn't seem to happy about its arachnid passengers either, but despite the Doctor's initial concerns that she was going to refuse to accept any kind of piloting again, she let the Time Lord flit around Sheffield until every reported super-spider had been lured inside with Ryan's music (he wasn't going to be pleased when he realised the Doctor had borrowed his phone again, but hopefully he'd forgive her when she returned it with a superefficient fast-charging battery). The ship even let her make a quick jump to Klattops, and only griped and moaned a little bit about the webby redecorating the spiders did in the mean time.

Herding the spiders out took a little longer than getting them all in - the TARDIS did have all sorts of lovely nooks and crannies for a curious arachnid, but the Doctor knew Ryan would never forgive her if she kept one or two on board for company. Even the smaller ones.

It was only when the ship was completely empty again (just the Doctor and her TARDIS, all through space and time) that the trouble started up again. The targetting computer display - and in fact all displays - were displaying the location of Ranskoor Av Kolov, and a reminder that there were distress calls pending from this location.

"Is this why you were messing about earlier? The call I ignored?"

The TARDIS didn't give any sign of answering, just left the display blinking at her from all sides.

"It's a stranded warship, the distress call was a call to recover bodies, nothing I could help with. No one left to save. I'm not getting involved in another war where I don't know who's on what side, and what they're planning on doing if they win." The Doctor settled a hand on the projector, briefly blocking the display. "I've got to meet them back in Sheffield - Graham and Yaz and Ryan. I said I would, and I... want to. I want to just say goodbye. Maybe afterwards, maybe after I've said goodbye to everyone we can go and see what there is left to see."

She said maybe, but she knew she didn't mean it. She was so, so tired of war. So tired of the loss of it, the waste of life, the imbalance. She didn't bother with the glitching targetting computer - she'd tried so many times to hit Sheffield, the coordinates were second nature now, she didn't even need to see the display.

As she materialised back in Sheffield, she stood for a moment staring at the message that the TARDIS still had displayed. Distress calls pending... When had it become more than one?

Then Team TARDIS piled back in through the doors, and she forgot about the question almost immediately.

-

The whispers started circulating in the last days of preparation for launch, the fleet newly completed, loaded with arms and tools and supplies, and populated with thousands of soldiers. There was always going to be rumours amongst a group this big, but this whisper sprang to life overnight.

The Shadow Proclamation were here.

The Shadow Proclamation wasn't the most trusted organisation, when their own rules and laws rarely considered the laws and customs of the populations they chose to oversee, and sometimes rulings were carried out without clear process or rationale.

They hadn't appeared despite pleas for their intervention while the Stenza was decimating the populations of the nine worlds - sending back a message stating they no influence over a power-matched invasion - and after the Stenza had been fought off, the congress of the nine had been formed to protect the remaining population and they had agreed that the Shadow Proclamation wouldn't be involved the next time there was a crisis, they would just help themselves.

This though, despite every indication that this was a Stenza action, this was far from power-matched technology. Perhaps the Shadow Proclamation could intervene here. Perhaps they were saved.

Greston quieted the rumours within his own crew and kept them focused on the task at hand. Even if the Shadow Proclamation did intervene, there was no assurance that the congress wouldn't still be needed to retrieve their planets themselves, and if - as was more likely - the Shadow Proclamation didn't agree to help or couldn't help, they were going to need to save themselves.

-

The trip back to the junk planet from ResusOne was unspeakably slow to the Doctor, even though it was far faster than the trip on the Tsuranga had been.

When they finally made it through the blue doors, the TARDIS was near vibrating with... well, something like fear and relief in the Doctor's mind, although she might have been projecting a little bit. The doors slammed shut as soon as all four of them were inside, close enough behind Graham that he made a shocked noise, and she dematerialised almost as soon as the Doctor got her hand to the lever. Like she just needed the Doctor to give the appearance of being in control, not the action.

There was a message waiting on the screen, but as soon as she looked towards it, hands grasping at the edge of the console for balance, it cleared and replaced whatever had been waiting for her with an image of the vortex outside.

Being back in the vortex was unspeakably soothing to the Doctor's jangled nerves, and she realised that she'd forgotten the others were there when she opened her eyes and found Yaz crouching nearby, Ryan standing over them both.

"You alright, Doc? Looking a bit pale there." Graham had a mug of tea in his hand, so she'd obviously had her eyes shut longer than she realised.

"Back with us?" Yaz asked, gently.

Don't scare them, the Doctor chided herself, trying to gather up enough energy to jump up and to action. Once she had them back in Sheffield she could return to the vortex and just... drift for a while. Commune with her TARDIS. It'd been a while, and she'd been so tetchy lately...

She made a concerted effort to get up, and found herself still on the ground afterwards.

"Could do with a rest, me," she said eventually. Working hard to keep the exhaustion out of her voice. "Mind if we put a hold on the adventuring for a little while? Just a couple of hours sleep'll do us all good, I think."

"Do you need a hand getting to your room?" Yaz offered. "Or... up at all?"

"You really shouldn't have done all that running around," Ryan chided. "Mabli kept telling you..."

The thought of moving felt actively painful (might have been actually painful, the medication the Matron on ResusOne had plied her with was wearing off) and the Doctor found a smile for Team TARDIS. "Honestly?" she said, with no intention of being honest. "I've slept in worse places, and I've just found a position that doesn't hurt."

As the humans debated, conceded and headed towards their own personal beds, the TARDIS stored the new raft of distress calls away in the file and saved it for another day.

-

"We're never going to get to launch if we keep waiting for the damned Shadow Proclamation to tell us we can," Voschi was ranting, pacing up and down the hold.

"Standby will last as long as it lasts," Paltraki replied, aiming for soothing and knowing he was falling short. They were a month overdue for launch now, and they'd spent the last two weeks of that waiting in standby. Cabin fever had set in days ago now.

"We're not military," Umsang broke in from where she was playing something on the ship's computer that should not have been installed. "Why are we even waiting?"

"You may not be military and this ship might not be officially military," Voschi snapped back, "But some of your crew are, thief. Besides, we need the rest of the fleet to act as our cover. There'd be no point turning up on our own, we'd be shot down before we got down to the surface. This is the plan we spent months on."

"Yeah, we spent months on it. Practising, reading, testing, drilling, practising some more. And now were trapped in this ship so old it doesn't even have third state computers, waiting for some higher power decide we can move, while we forget everything we've ever known."

"It has to be an older model ship, so it has physical shielding instead of force-grade," Zhuri spoke up from the weapons cache inventorying. "Because Ranskoor Av Kolos has an atmosphere of..."

"Yes, Zhuri, I know. I was at that briefing!"

Zhuri went back to the inventory with an eye-roll and a shrug.

The ships comm buzzed on and Paltraki quickly flicked Umsang's display off to hide the contraband game, ignoring her noise of complaint.

The commander's face filled the screen, standing too close to the camera as always, and she loomed over them. "Fleetwide announcement," she said, Umsang rolled her eyes and leaned forwards to reactivate her display. "The Shadow Proclamation have determined that the Stenza are working with a race called the Ux. The Ux have refused to communicate with the Shadow Protocol. Shadow Protocol parties have been destroyed."

There was a general intake of breath at that. Their respect for the Shadow Protocol's processes may have been limited, but their respect for their strength was not.

"The fleet will launch as planned, the Shadow Protocol have offered us their support, but will not intervene further."

-

"One day," the Doctor mused, pausing in her thought to take another swig of Sontaran Vodka and slump a little further into the gap between two shielding plates. "One day, I'm going to remember that Humans are all trouble, and all they ever want to do is change their own past or manipulate their own future."

The TARDIS set up a gentle rocking motion, and the Doctor closed her eyes, but jolted upright as the bottle started to slip from her grasp.

"Don't try to sooth me, you. I see what you're doing there." She scowled around the console room, gesturing with the bottle at who-knows-what. "And yes, fine, maybe I should have realised that you'd pick up on the most emotionally charged moment in the history of that watch. I know this was my fault, okay, but I just wanted..."

She dropped into meaningless mumbling, and scrambled out from the gap she'd squeezed herself into, ostensibly to track down the glitch that was keeping Ranskoor Av Kolov in the targeting computer long after she'd ruled it out as a destination.

She put the bottle down to use both hands, and didn't notice as a slight tilt had it rolling back down into the gap between the shielding plates where she'd found it. She wobbled heavily as she stood, and gazed at her own hand and then down at the floor around her feet for a minute, as if expecting to see something there.

"I just don't think..." she started, and then groaned a little, knuckling at her temple as she staggered towards the console. "Will you just shush," she hissed. "Urg, why do all the telepathics think I'm as mind-deaf as the humans and insist on *shouting* so loud? How am I supposed to remember all the things I need to do and say and not say when my brain's rattling around my head like a... thing... rattly thing. Rattling."

With the hand that wasn't pressed to her head, she reached out and traced the name of Ranskoor Av Kolos on the display, considering it and the Shadow Protocol distress call that had joined the others listed alongside it. Her other hand came down onto the vortex lever, settled there for a moment, considering.

As her muscles tensed to activate it the alcohol caught up with her and she passed out face-first onto the grating.

-

The cryosleep cycle was six months, and with four crew that meant a two year cycle of duty for the two weeks of maintenance, checks and repairs before joining the others back in the pods. The cycle change over was only a couple of days - just enough to wake up, spend twenty four hours in bleary cryoshock, eat and drink enough to feed and hydrate your body for the next six months, and then back into the pod with commiserations to whichever crewmember had the maintenance shift next.

Maintenance shift wasn't bad. Paltraki almost enjoyed it, the chance to spend two weeks of quiet contemplation of the life he was leaving far behind, the risks implicit in the journey he was undertaking, and the fates of the ones who had gone before. He would be in contact with the rest of the fleet three times during those two weeks - once on wakeup, once to report the findings of the maintenance and checks to the fleet commander, and once just before he rejoined the others in cryosleep to confirm that all repairs were complete and the ship was battle ready again.

It was on his third maintenance shift - six years into the journey that would take them ten - when Paltraki got the unexpected call from fleet commander, only two days into the first week.

"Paltraki, come in Paltraki." Fleet command had four Captains, and they didn't have a cryosleep cycle like the rest of the fleet - there was always one Captain awake and alert, ready to take remote control of the entire fleet if required, to modify the course or to take urgent action and wake everyone should there be a need.

"Paltraki responding," he replied, trying to remember the name of the fleet commander who was currently on duty. "How can I help you... Yoonis?" He tried to keep the question out of his voice, but the woman on the other end of the line chuckled anyway.

"No help required, just wanted to let you know... We've just come into range of the second fleet's radio signal. Don't tune in, okay? Don't listen. You don't want to hear it."

"I... don't?" Paltraki asked, feeling his heart hammering. Yoonis was being gentle, but if the second fleet was sending out a message that she didn't want him to hear... Then they had just become the last fleet. Their plan - their insane, stupid plan - was the only plan. The final plan.

Everything had just become a whole lot more real.

-

The Doctor took one step out of the TARDIS, keeping within the shielding and still shivering slightly in the super-cooled environment that existed just beyond the barrier. She looked around, taking in the contrast between Kerblam!'s organic work area and its automated work area. There wasn't as much difference as she'd hoped - still stark, cold and metallic.

"How can I help?" an automated voice asked. Followed by, "This area is not suitable for organic assistance. Thank you for your enthusiasm, but please return to your usual work area."

"I'm here to talk to the Kerblam! system. My name's the Doctor - you called me for help." She couldn't keep the cool disapproval out of her voice.

"The Doctor is a mythological defender of all life. I could not act to defend my workers, and the Doctor made an order for delivery. Fez, quantity 1, deliver to..."

"Yes, yes. You brought me here to defend your workers. That much I understand. But... Can I be frank with you? I feel like I can be frank with you. You've never cared for your workers. Your operating system is based on the high consumerist models of the twenty second century - there are thousands more workers begging for jobs and saying they'll work harder and for less than the last worker you hired. Maybe someone's built you some morals, some ethics, some care for the people under your roof, but I don't think that's it. Help me understand?"

"Operational efficiency was falling."

"Ah, yes that's more like it."

"New staff take time to train, at a cost of two point two-four-four-nine-six efficiency units and a price margin of eight point five-nine percent, and are twenty eight point two percent more likely to be unsuitable for the task they are originally hired for than existing staff."

The Doctor considered, hands in pockets and rocking back and forth on her feet. "What do you think of Ms. Maddox's plans for your shut down, while you rebuild the Kerblam Men?"

"Her plans are inefficient, and would likely lead to the closure of this company and further unemployment. There are others who are appropriate for her role in this company."

"That's what I thought," the Doctor mused. "It's not true though, have you realised that? I mean... really, if you take a look at the finances, and the market, and do the calculations for yourself, rather than picking up on the preprogrammed messages your creator set down for you when asked to do anything which is less efficient. When you take into account all the other businesses out there which survive on a very different business model."

"Their business model is not at a comparable scale. Kerblam! is..."

"One thing Kerblam! is, right now, right at this very moment...? Kerblam! is talking to the Doctor. And the Doctor is the defender of all life. The life that Kerblam! supports, the population on the surface of Kandoka, they're struggling because of the way you're running your business. And I'm here to defend them."

The Doctor reached behind herself and placed something large and cylindrical on the floor, just outside the reach of the TARDIS' shields. Frost immediately formed on the surface.

"Now, I'm trying really hard to be kind and fair and all those virtuous things with this new face of mine, but you should know there's no one here for me to pretend for, and I am very, very angry right now. You may not have self-preservation built in, but you have business preservation hardcoded down to your origin. And right now, if I destroy the system, the business will collapse. So..."

"A threat?"

"An ultimatum. This..." She gestured at the cylinder. "Well you can imagine what this is. This is going to stay here, in this sealed room where no one can come in and out and take it away without damaging your servers. I'm going to come back, periodically. I'm going to talk to the people on Kandoka, and I'm going to talk to the workers, and I'm going to talk to Ms Maddox, who will still be working here right up until she chooses to leave, or chooses to retire. And provided I'm happy, I won't evacuate your workers and then set off this device. Do I make myself clear."

"Your threat has been logged," the system replied, after a long pause.

"And I am very sorry about the Kerblam! men. They really are capable of bringing joy. You should remember that - factor it into your efficiency studies."

The Doctor stepped back into the TARDIS and let the door swing shut. Behind her, the TARDIS projected the distress calls from Ranskoor Av Kolos across one wall, and the Doctor ignored them, head down and shoulders rounded as she took herself to bed.

-

Umsang was cursing the lack of dexterity in her suit as she dismantled one of the loading arrays, all four of them standing up to their knees in cold water as the war railed on the ground beyond them.

From time to time Zhuri had them all duck as a stray laser bolt or shell flew overhead, but so far he hadn't needed to return fire. No one had noticed the small team of thieves who were sneaking past the fighters towards their base.

There were maybe a dozen platoons of sniper droids stamping around, but while there were far fewer of them than there were fleet ships and ground walkers, not to mention the space-to-ground bombardment, more often than not it was fleet ships fighting fleet ships.

The shielding they had developed for the suits and the war machines was keeping Paltraki and his crew from feeling the planet's effects, but as soon as the shielding was cracked or damaged - as soon as it took a laser blast from the sniper bots, it seemed - it became useless. And out there good people were dying because they couldn't defend themselves from the planet's vicious atmosphere.

Paltraki hardened himself to the sounds of the fleet failing. Nothing mattered now other than reversing the process that had been used to rip the planets out of their orbit. He took a moment to cut off the audio feeds from the fleet to his team. No one else needed to hear that. Voschi looked up from where she was guarding Umsang and gave him a nod of thanks. Umsang just kept working; still swearing and cursing, tears streaming down her face.

When the loader engaged, she barely had a chance to slam the control panel back into place before they were dragged up into the monolith above, into the darkened corridors and damp air of the monstrous planet-stealer.

Even as they had arrived on the planet, they had seen the beam of red light shoot up into the sky, and they knew another planet had been stolen. They had no idea what was happening to the planets after the red light had cut off, but the scientists had identified the strange density profile of Ranskoor Av Kolos and hypothesised that the planets were somewhere inside the monolith.

They moved through the hallways slowly, trackers in hand and guiding them towards the areas of highest density. Paltraki listed to the soldiers dying outside, warships triggering distress calls as their last soldier fell, and fixed his attention on the flashing points on his map. They were going to get their planet back where it should be, no matter the cost.

-

"OK, OK fine. Ranskoor Av Kolos, tell me what you know."

The Doctor slumped against the closed TARDIS doors, Sheffield bustling outside as her friends returned to their lives for a couple of days of normality. A couple of days not being dragged into the most terrifying of encounters after being promised fun, frolicking and ridiculous quantities of food.

This little feud had to end, and if she had to be the bigger Time Lord to get things back on track, then so be it. But no matter how hard the TARDIS pushed, she wasn't intentionally taking her new mates into a warzone without doing her damned research.

She shivered as she pushed off the door frame and wandered towards the projected wall of information that was scrolling. Planetary details, dates and times, files ready to load with distress calls inside.

"So there was a war, a long one... all the battles in the same area? Got to love localised war-making - keeping it away from the families and the crops... But warships, that's not the kind of battle that gets contained like that..."

She scrolled through the details, frowning at the confusion of information as she sniffed a couple of times. She wiped her running nose on her sleeve, and grimaced as she realised the sleeve was still damp from the day before.

"Gotta pick up some faster drying fabrics," she mused to herself. "Cotton's no good for ducking stool action."

She selected one of the earlier messages, watched the confusion of emotion and words, selected another. She sneezed three times into her elbow and loaded another video.

"So either there's a psychic weapon, or something about this planet is causing..."

She sneezed a fourth time and the display went blank for a second before loading a medical journal article on ectospleen displacement.

"Yes, okay, yes, I've picked up a 17th century virus after getting dunked in a lake, because I'm immunosuppressed, because I got myself and all my friends blown up by a sonic mine, because *you* keep burning through artron fuses trying to fight my piloting. So really..." sneeze "… who's at fault?" She waved a hand at the display. "Give me back the other data, it's just a cold, I'm fine."

The display flicked off again, and the corridor into the TARDIS' rooms lit up.

"Oh, come on. Make your mind up, for goodness sake. I'm here, I'm paying attention, I'm interested. Okay? Let me have the data."

The display stayed pointedly blank, and the Doctor rolled her eyes, only regretting it slightly as her head started to ache.

"Fine, the Library will have a book on Ranskoor Av Kolos. I'll start there. But if you misdirect us again, after you made the decision to stop me researching, there'll be trouble - understand?"

-

They'd made it all the way into the centre of the monolith without seeing anyone, but constantly feeling like they were being watched. They'd all agreed that the planet's affects were just niggling the edges of their mind, making the ground feel like it was swaying slightly under their feet, and giving the edge of a headache that made them tetchy and prone to snapping at one another.

Whatever technology had gone into the suits they were wearing, it wasn't quite blocking out everything.

They were close to the planets now, and would surely turn a corner to find them and whatever technology was holding them here. And then... well, then they would just have to hope that Umsang could work out how to reverse the technology that brought them here to return them, and they could blow the place sky high.

Zhuri gestured for them to stop, backing up a step himself as a dozen sniper bots appeared, marching in step. Paltraki pushed Umsang further behind him as he took a knee and opened fire. He head Voschi shout, but he couldn't afford to look until the last bot was destroyed.

Finally the laser fire died down, and he rushed to Voschi's side. A laser bolt had scorched the shoulder of her suit, stripping off the protective coating but only blistering her skin beneath. No serious damage.

"It looks like they were patrolling," Voschi said, brushing off Paltraki's concern. "I'll stay here, keep the hall clear, Captain. You go forward."

"If you start to feel the planet's influence..."

"I'll try to let you know before I lose it completely. I'll deactivate my weapon too, last thing I want is to hurt you because I got confused."

"If it happens, get out of here," Paltraki snapped back. "Don't do anything else, just get back to the shielding on the ship as fast as you can."

"Captain... you know this wasn't ever a two-way trip. I'll be here until I can't be anymore, and then I'll make myself as harmless as possible."

"You've never been harmless, Voschi," he said, clapping her shoulder, and then turned his back and headed towards the door that the bots had been guarding. There was no time now, no time for sentiment, no time for anything. They had planets to save, and a machine to destroy.

-

"So we're agreed," the Doctor murmured, expecting Team TARDIS to troupe in through the doors any moment. "Norway, just like Graham always thought about - somewhere rural, some nice mountains, maybe a fjord... maybe a *little* mystery, something small, something I can be all Sherlock over... Hey, don't laugh at me. I love a good mystery. And if there's a little shop... There isn't much can beat a little shop..."

The display lit up, coordinates and a TripAdvisor page for an alpaca farm and gift shop.

She grinned broadly. "Perfect. Just perfect. Oh, and early winter too, I bet there are pine nuts. I love pine nuts, they make such a nice snack and Graham's never sharing his..."

The door popped open and the Doctor span around, grinning.

"Right, you lot. Ready for another adventure?"

The TARDIS landed as neatly as she could with the parking brake still on (the Doctor would find it again one day) and watched the team pile out. The Doctor went foraging for forest snacks, spouting nonsense like normal, and then they wandered off towards the mystery cottage.

The Doctor would find the speakers quickly enough, if she didn't get distracted, and maybe it would put her in a good enough mood to consider Ranskoor Av Kolos next. The warships were still unnerving her, and none of the distress messages had clear enough information to really understand what they would be walking into, but the TARDIS had seen her searching through the store room for the neural disruptors. She was definitely considering it. And with eight brand new distress calls pinging her sensors, the TARDIS knew it was about time.

About time for the Doctor to be brave.

-

Paltraki led the group in through the door, expecting to find more guards and only finding a machine, massive in size and holding two figures, both unconscious. Was this the planet-stealing device? He had no way of knowing, but he would need to find out if they were going to return the planets to their rightful places.

While he'd been distracted by the immobile figures, Umsang had crept past him towards the five odd shapes that seemed to buzz with constrained energy.

"This is..." she started, fingers reaching towards one of the shapes.

"Who are you?" a soft voice asked, dragging Paltraki's attention back towards the machine. The man on the upper level had woken, looking down on them with a frown. "How did you get in here?" He sounded exhausted, shaken and sad.

"My name is Paltraki," he said, hating how cold his voice sounded from within the helmet but unwilling to take it off, even to speak to someone who might help. "We've come to force the Stenza and the Ux to return our planet to its orbit, and the three..." He glanced at the row of shapes. "Four others that have been stolen. Are the Stenza holding you here?"

"I don't know the Stenza, but we are the Ux. My name's Delph. My Creator was the one who ordered your planet to be brought here. My power is what displaces them."

"And you do this willingly?"

"I..."

"Who are you? Get out of the Creator's temple!" The other figure had awoken, and unlike Delph she wasn't shackled to the device, already rising.

Paltraki backed up a couple of steps. "My name is Greston Paltraki, and on behalf of the congress of the nine planets, I am here to demand you return our planets to their orbits, before the atrocities you and the Stenza have enacted cause the loss of more lives."

"We do as the Creator wills, and the Creator determined these planets were to be acquired."

"Andinio..." Delph said.

"The Creator... Your 'Creator' has destroyed countless billions of lives, countless more if the planets in those crystals are barren. Return them, and at least those who escaped with their lives can have a home again."

"Paltraki," Zhuri said from the doorway. "Incoming."

"We cannot return your planets, their removal from the time and place was determined by the Creator. We follow his will." The one identified as Andinio was approaching as she spoke, the one still chained to the machine was calling her name, and between them was Umsang, reaching into her pocket.

Paltraki ducked, covering his head as Umsang set off the flash-bang. As he stood back up, a crystal was thrust into his hands and Umsang pushed him towards the exit, two steps behind him with a crystal under each arm. Paltraki ran, shifting the weight of the crystal to free up his gun as he found Zhuri just beyond the doors facing down a wall of sniper bots.

He crouched to help, but Zhuri shook his head. "Keep going. Get the planets out of here, I'll cover you."

Paltraki glanced back and found Umsang behind him. "We go right, keep dodging, remember your training."

They dodged group after group, sneaking more often than running, listening for shouting voices, hoping for the sound of their team catching them up. They were back down on the surface when their luck ran out, Andinio appearing behind them with a shout that shook the ground.

When Paltraki glanced back, he saw her eyes begin to glow, the machinery around them - broken and inert - starting to shake as if something inside was picking it up and rattling it. "You will return what you have stolen," her voice seemed to echo through him, and the metal came hurtling towards him.

He met Umsang's eyes, just for a moment, and she mouthed 'run'.

It was later that he came back to himself, inside the shielding of the ship, though he had no idea how he'd got there. His helmet was on the ground at his feet, a long thin crack running down one side, and beside it was the crystal containing a planet.

There was no way of knowing what planet it was, whether it was Nixus or one of the others missing, but he had it, and at least within this ship he was safe from any further attack by the hostile atmosphere. There was a good chance, if he got the crystallised planet to them, the scientists would be able to return the planet from the crystal shell - scientists always seemed to be able to do impossible things.

He should go back now. With the one planet his team had sacrificed themselves to retrieve, and the information he had gained - the names, the machines. The loss of life had been massive, but if he returned with even a single planet, he'd likely be hailed as a hero.

The problem was... the problem was, he didn't want to be a hero coming back home without his crew. He didn't want to tell Umsang's mother that she wasn't coming home. He didn't want to speak to Zhuri's husband, to Voschi's kids and grandkids.

His comms system started signalling an incoming call, and confused as he was, he knew he'd already received one call. He didn't remember what was said, but he'd spoken to... who had he spoken to?

He turned the helmet over in his hands, wondered how long he'd been outside with his helmet cracked like that. Wondering how much more exposure he could survive. He ignored the comms system, flicked on his own distress signal, reprogrammed the targeting device to look for life forms, and pulled the helmet back onto his head.

He shouldn't go outside, not with his helmet in such a state. He knew it was futile. He shouldn't go outside.

But he wasn't leaving his crew out there alone.


End file.
